I want to see the guitar in a non-linear sense that encompasses tones, arrangements, songwriting, audio production, and everything else - you have to do it all.
It's hard to chase a vibe and catch a vibe.
When you've got a mask on, you're kind of invincible. It's almost like nobody can see you, and you can do what you want to do without consequences.
We're closer friends in Stone Sour than I am with the guys in Slipknot and that makes life a lot easier. I'm not trying to take anything away from Slipknot.
It's probably a lot cooler than wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Once I put on the mask, I don't even realize that it's there. They're molded off of our faces, so they fit really well.
Iowa,' for me, I hated doing that album - it wasn't a good experience for me.
It's always been about the live show for us. We're having Halloween onstage every night.
In a nine-piece-band is one guy gonna call up eight guys and have a 45-minute discussion about every decision? No. So things are a lot more democratic in Stone Sour. Plus, we're closer and it's a lot easier to communicate. In Slipknot that's the big problem - communication.
Some of the guys in Stone Sour, I think they just want to be a radio band and write strictly for radio and try to be more of a poppy rock band. And that's not really what I'm into.
All my racks are the same between Slipknot and Stone Sour. The only thing I'll do is switch out pedals in the GCX system. But it's the same heads, same wireless, same GCX.
I can never look at anything I do subjectively - whether it's a Stone Sour record or a Slipknot record, I can never really have my own opinion of it, 'cos in my opinion it's all crap.
I love Stone Sour. I love the music that we created. and it was a fun ride. But if I'm going to sacrifice all of my free time and my life for something, it has to be something that I a thousand-percent believe in, and something where I have a thousand-percent communication with everyone involved. And that something is Slipknot.
With all the different guys in the band and all the different ideas of what's what, it's hard to get everybody on the same page sometimes. We are a very tight brotherhood, but we never know what we're going to do.
I was awkward in school. I didn't really fit in with any kind of crowd in school. I didn't have a lot of friends. But the friends I had were very close friends.
It's important to evolve without ever straying too far from your roots and what established you.
I'm just a dumb guitar player, man.
I'm always living at least a year ahead of where I'm really at, and that can really lead you to some negative thoughts and some bad vibes.
One of the downfalls of not being in Stone Sour was I sat at home for two and a half years, and I hadn't ever done that since we started touring in 1999. I was really nervous and freaked out.
I'll admit that I don't have a lot of discipline when it comes to practicing. I'm not the type of guy who sits at home with a metronome and runs through scales and stuff like that. But I do go through phases when I'll be more diligent, and I notice that warming up and working on some patterns will make my playing cleaner.
Yes, it is extremely lucky to be doing what I'm doing, and I wouldn't change any of it for the world.
